


Her Highnesses Bella and Donna of the Line of Durin (and sure as hell there's some Took in there)

by RarePairFairy



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bilbo Remains In Erebor, Bagginshield Babies, Dwobbits, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Multi-perspective, Post-BOFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RarePairFairy/pseuds/RarePairFairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the years following the Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin and his spouse Bilbo Baggins (or Bilbo Kingtamer, depending on who you ask and whether or not the royal family is within earshot) are blessed with two bouncing baby girls.<br/>The rest of the company consider themselves blessed too, given that they all get to be honorary uncles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Highnesses Bella and Donna of the Line of Durin (and sure as hell there's some Took in there)

'What's that?' Bella asked. At her age, it still sounded like "wazdat". But at least she'd stopped pointing at things, like Dwalin's bald head, and simply demanding "what".

'It's the Arkenstone,' Bilbo said coolly.

Bella sat in the crook of Thorin's arm, her copper hair loosely braided and bare feet dangling. Her sister was held by Bilbo. Donna preferred to curl up in her father's arms and rest her black curls on his shoulder.

'Waa?' Donna half-yawned, rubbing her eyes. It was almost time for their afternoon nap. Normally they were too energetic to sleep, but the twins had tired themselves out chasing each other up and down the stairs.

'The king's jewel,' Bilbo said.

'The king's fourth, and least important jewel,' Thorin corrected, kissing the top of Bella's head.

Bilbo used to get unsettled when Thorin did that. It was as though he was still trying to compensate for what had come before, repeatedly assuring Bilbo that the Arkenstone really wasn't precious to him, not anymore. It felt false. If the Arkenstone wasn't an integral part of Thorin's life, why would he have dangled Bilbo off a cliff out of angry desperation for it? It was honesty Bilbo wanted, not reassurance.

But then the twins were born, and Bilbo had brought up the possibility of taking them back to the Shire, because after all, they were part hobbit and hobbits need sunshine and soft grass. Also, the word "half-breed" had been muttered behind Bilbo's back often enough for him to worry about their safety.

Thorin had begged Bilbo to stay and marry him.

It was impossible to have children and then get married without having a number of serious conversations, and one of those was about the Arkenstone. Yes, it was still precious to him, Thorin admitted. But Bella and Donna and Bilbo were infinitely more precious. He would trample over the king’s jewel in a rush to bring them home if Bilbo set one foot out of the mountain. And that sounded honest when Thorin murmured it into Bilbo's curls, clinging to him late at night. The thing that finally brought Bilbo around was what had been said immediately afterwards.

'I am afraid of it,' Thorin admitted, a hushed whisper, a humiliated confession. Bilbo just wrapped his arms around Thorin's shoulders and held on tight. 'Me too, sometimes. But I'm not afraid of _you_.'

So now, weeks after that conversation, they were showing it to their daughters for the first time, though the whole story about how it was recovered from a dragon would have to wait some years.

'Isslike a lil moon,' Donna said sleepily. Then she buried her face in the collar of Bilbo's shirt and nodded off. Bella stared up at the Arkenstone. Thorin looked at her small face, reserved, wondering. She had Bilbo's eyes and his hatred of wearing shoes. But she was also the bossy one, the one who most resembled Thorin in spirit. Would she be like him? Would she ever come to prize the Arkenstone over her people?

Bella turned, looked up at Thorin and tugged his braids.

'Can we have lunch now?'

x

Bombur adored the princesses. Partly because, aside from him and Bilbo, they were the only ones who really knew how to enjoy a well-cooked meal. And they really, _really_ enjoyed meals. They had the healthy appetites of growing hobbits, which is to say they ate about twice their own weight whenever they got the chance. Bombur was a father too, however, and when he wasn't feeling chuffed for cooking something they loved, he was worried about their little bellies.

'Where does it all _go_?' he asked, while the girls tucked into their third helping of pudding. Thorin, looking over their heads, shrugged. He had long gotten over the parental terror that there must be something wrong with his babies and trusted Bilbo as the resident hobbit to know how much was too much.

'Where do you think they get all of their energy from?' Bilbo countered. The faint shadows under his eyes spoke for themselves.

Bella prodded Bombur with a spoon. He looked down at her. She held out her bowl.

x

Ori liked to read as much as he liked to write. And reading aloud helped him think. So when Thorin was passed out on an armchair and Bilbo had spent the day chasing after the twins, and the head scribe was offered the job of reading them their evening stories, he was thrilled.

At first.

'Wazdat?'

'It's a bear.'

'No is not.'

'Well, it's a skinchanger.'

'Wazdat?'

'It's a man who can turn into a bear.'

'How?'

'By magic.'

'Wazdat?'

If he could understand what they were saying most of the time, that would help. But even when he could, he often wished he couldn't. They asked questions that no-one had ever asked him, and that he didn't know how to answer. The whole thing was an exercise in trying to describe how far up the sky went, what butterflies were made of, the difference between bears and dogs and cats, and how magic worked. He wondered, painfully confused, if he had ever done the same thing.

'Yes,' Dori responded flatly, later that night when Ori wandered tiredly back to his quarters.

'But I don't remember asking all those questions,' Ori whined, head on the table.

'I bet you don't remember what you had for breakfast on your tenth birthday either. Children aren't born knowing these things, Ori, they have to learn. And mostly, they learn by being told.'

x

Dwalin didn't realize he had fallen over until two little frilly lumps landed on his chest.

'We win!!' Bella declared, while Donna clapped victoriously. Dwalin peered up at them in surprise. He hadn't even seen them coming.

'Win what?' he asked gruffly. His axe had clattered to the floor some distance to his right, and the sound had made two guards come running. Those guards stood in the doorway to the armory, puzzled and hesitant.

'Everything all right, sir?' they asked.

'Nooo, is not,' Bella wooped. 'Dwalin has been defeated by the nasty two-headed pudding monster of Erebor! We control this castle now! It's ours and you can't come in.'

The guards looked from Dwalin, still on his back, to the little girls clambering all over him.

'And what will you do, now that you control the castle?' Dwalin asked, humoring them while he surreptitiously tried to reach for the netting hanging against the nearest wall.

'We'll make it a pudding castle,' Bella said decidedly.

'And how will you do that?'

'Fill it with pudding,' Donna piped up.

'And turn the walls into pudding,' Bella added.

'Mountain pudding,' Donna specified. Dwalin let out his best war-cry, and the girls shrieked and giggled hysterically, as he brought the net down on top of them and rolled them off. He sat up to see the guards looking a bit lost.

'Well, you seem to have the situation under control, sir,' they said. Then they bowed, and walked out the door. Dwalin chuckled to hear them break into a run once they were out of sight.

'They're scared of the two-headed pudding monster,' came an eerie whisper from the pile of netting, followed by a pair of giggles. 'We'll get them next.'

Then the pile of netting began to shuffle away, out the door in pursuit of the sound of the guard's clinking armor.

x

'Stop teaching them to steal things,' Bilbo said, swiping a handkerchief out of Nori's sleeve.

'I'm teachin' em no such thing,' Nori said, sounding hurt.

'Then how exactly did they spirit away half of my second breakfast without me noticing? Hm?' Bilbo asked, tapping his foot and crossing his arms.

'Must have inherited your keen burglar sense,' Nori said, tone syrupy and flattering. Bilbo remained unimpressed. Nori turned plaintive. 'They'd do it whether I taught them or not,' he said. 'And better they learn to do it properly rather than do it badly and get caught, eh?'

Bilbo slapped Nori's arm, squinted at him, then stuffed his hand back up Nori's sleeve. Nori struggled, just barely. He knew he'd lost.

'And what's this?' Bilbo asked sharply, holding up a piece of silverware Thorin had had brought to the mountain from Bag End. 'This is one of the few things I still own from the place where I grew up. Just because I've started a wonderful new life here doesn't mean you can go nicking my irreplaceable belongings.'

Nori bowed. 'You truly have the sharpest eyes and the quickest wit, Bilbo Baggins. As one burglar to another I salute you. Truly, nothing gets pass-'

The end of his sentence was cut off by Bilbo slamming the door in his face.

x

Hearing Donna toot away tunelessly on her first musical pipe warmed Bofur's heart right down to the cellar. Bella preferred plucking strings at random on Thorin's harp, but Donna had wanted a panpipe ever since Bofur played at their fourth birthday.

'I'd be thankful if you would find the time to teach her,' Thorin and Bilbo had both said to him, in their own ways and their own words, separately from each other. That made Bofur even happier. To know that both of them would entrust their daughter's musical development to him, of all people. He had dreamed in his youth of being more than a miner, but he never thought he'd have such a lofty job as teaching music to princesses.

‘It doesn’t sound right,’ Donna said sadly, furrowing her brow. Bella behaved like Thorin, but Donna looked like him. It had amused Bofur once to see such a Bilbo-like personality in such a Thorin-like package, with Thorin’s personality in a Bilbo-like shape. It also saddened him. Thorin was extremely hard on himself, and like him, Donna was positively unforgiving of her own shortcomings. And she was barely eight.

‘Just try again,’ Bofur said encouragingly, patting her head. ‘You’ve all the time in the world.’

Donna smiled up at him dimly, like she didn’t quite believe him, and for a moment she looked very much like Bilbo.

x

Gloin hated teaching figures. Balancing his own accounts he could do in his sleep, but when the princesses began learning their numbers he found himself nearly tearing his own beard out in frustration.

‘Bilbo usually teaches them,’ Gloin’s wife pointed out. ‘It’s only once a week, and only an hour at that. What have you to complain about? You taught Gimli.’

‘Gimli has his father’s head for counting,’ Gloin said firmly. ‘These girls don’t care a jot for credits or debits or profits. To them it’s one big game.’

‘Maybe you should leave the financial aspect of it till they’re a little older then,’ his wife suggested. ‘They are just a decade old.’

It didn’t help that Thorin sometimes visited halfway through classes. If either of their parents was there, the girls only acted up worse.

‘No, no now girls, you must try again. You have fifty gold pieces. The farmer has ten gold pieces. Each week, he makes a profit of five gold pieces. Now, bearing in mind the cost of building the statue as well as the cost of maintaining the food supply during winter, how much is it fair to tax the farmer?’

Bella and Donna looked at each other. They looked at the chalk-drawn numbers on the flat slate beside Gloin’s head.

‘Why does he have to pay tax if we have five times more than he does?’

‘And why are we building a statue if we need as much food as possible for the stores for winter?’

‘If the food supply is coming mostly from the farmers, shouldn’t they be getting more money to buy more seeds to make more food?’

‘And why …’

The girls continued as Gloin stared balefully at Thorin across the room. The king only smiled, amused and probably relieved at not being their teacher.

‘Now girls, I think you’re missing the point,’ Gloin said, flustered. Thorin stood and approached, placing a hand on each of their heads. He met Gloin’s eyes. Gloin hesitated as the twins reached up and squeezed their father’s hands affectionately, before turning to gossip between themselves.

‘Do not discourage them,’ Thorin said gently. ‘I think they understand better than we know.’

Gloin sighed. Maybe they did. And maybe he should stick to teaching them division and multiplication.

x

Donna wanted to learn archery, but Bella wanted to learn how to use throwing knives. Their cousins loved this, because it meant they got one avid pupil each.

Kili made Donna’s bow with his own two hands. It was made of dark wood painted with tigerlilies and white roses, two of Donna’s favourite flowers. He even went so far as asking Tauriel to supplement Donna’s lessons (notably behind Thorin’s back, but he didn’t have to know one of his daughters was making friends with an elf unless it was strictly necessary, and anyway, apparently it annoyed Thranduil deeply so he probably wouldn’t be that upset about it when he found out).

Fili started Bella practicing with wooden sticks painted pink on one end, so they would know if she hit the target. Once she consistently managed to cover the bullseye in little pink dots, he gifted her with a specially crafted pair of throwing knives, heavy enough to feel authentic, but light enough that she could use them.

The first time there was a kidnapping attempt, the villain was found outside the barricaded door of the girl’s room with a dagger sticking out of each foot and an arrow firmly lodged in his privates. Bilbo threw him in the dungeon. Nori and Dwalin, after they stopped laughing, went to hunt down the others responsible. Thorin had the girls temporarily moved into his and Bilbo’s quarters.

Fili and Kili threw the girls a party.

X

Balin and Dori loved telling the girls stories. Even when they were old enough that they knew every adventure, the trolls, Bilbo saving Thorin, Beorn, every single one off by heart, they still loved to come up with new tales to tell, and never exhausted the old ones.

What they didn’t love was dressing them.

‘I _won’t wear shoes_ ,’ Bella said. No, she growled. She had a tendency to do that when she was reaching the end of her tether.

Donna fidgeted in her chair.

‘Donna doesn’t mind wearing shoes, do you Donna?’ Dori asked helplessly. Balin knew the pleading voice when he heard it. He was very close to giving in.

‘Don’t bring me into it,’ Donna protested. ‘Just let her go without shoes. The whole kingdom knows she hates shoes anyway, it’s not going to come as a shock to anyone.’

‘It’s such an important day,’ Dori fretted. The girls were almost fifteen. That was almost halfway to being of age as far as dwarves were concerned, and by hobbit standards, they were more than halfway. They had grown slightly faster than the dwarves had anticipated, while Bilbo was still marveling at how slowly they were apparently developing.

Either way, the princesses were receiving their crowns, and that required an appearance before the royal court, and that required formal wear. The dresses were gorgeous, blue and dark red, their capes lined with silk and gold thread. Their hair was extravagantly braided and festooned with jewels. They wore rings and bracelets designed to resemble flowers and blossoms, to signify their dual heritage.

But Bella positively refused to put on shoes.

‘The outfit is not complete without the shoes,’ Dori pushed. ‘They were specially made to match your capes.’

‘Well that’s your mistake,’ Bella said dismissively. ‘You knew I wouldn’t put them on when you designed them.’

‘I had hoped you would co-operate,’ Dori grouched.

‘Well now,’ Balin intervened gently. ‘The gowns are stunning on their own. And also quite long.’

Dori almost turned purple. ‘You cannot suggest letting her appear in front of everyone barefoot?’

‘You are two of the most beautiful dwarves in Erebor,’ Balin said, kneeling before the seated princesses. They looked at each other skeptically, but blushed anyway. ‘And you look stunning, from your curiously pointed ears to your bright blue eyes, to the ends of your curly hair. And not a single person in that room is going to be looking at your feet.’

Dori huffed. He knew that pretty speech was as much for him as it was for the girls.

At least Donna tolerated shoes.

‘So I don’t have to wear shoes?’ Bella asked quietly, doubtfully.

‘I won’t try and make you wear them,’ Balin said. The three of them, copper-haired, black-haired and white-haired, turned their gazes expectantly on Dori. He threw up his hands.

‘I am outnumbered! Fine. Have it your way,’ he said, sitting heavily on his own chair and possessively keeping a firm hold on the shoes he had lovingly designed for their special day.

He heard a pattering at his side, and felt a small hand on his arm. He looked down to see Bella, pretty, self-assured and completely bare footed, smiling up at him.

‘The clothes are lovely, mister Dori,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Despite himself, Dori smiled. So did Balin.


End file.
